Dear Cheryl,

What SparkyDon said is absolutely true! I "waved" to him this morning and he was gone in a split second. Does the wave activate a secret flinging button that ejects the waved-to from the boards?

Feeling Rejected

Maybe the wave is related to the clam.

I don't trust spammers...

Cheryl
A week or so back Batty and I were talking about Thanksgiving,she tried to say us Canadians stole the Americans holiday...
I pointed out that obviously this is wrong and in fact that the Americans stole the Canadian holiday,all you have to do is check the calendars and see your Thanksgiving is weeks after ours
She still insists she is right...
What do you think?If I,m wrong why is yours on later date??

Dear Cheryl,

I too thought that Thanksgiving was an American event, but not wanting to side with either Sparkydon or the very wonderful Batty on the topic, least I side with beauty, I looked it up and found the following, perhaps a little long, but interesting.


Thursday, November 28, 2002

Holiday's date varies around the world with harvest

By RON TAYLOR
COX NEWS SERVICE

ATLANTA -- Thanksgiving was in January in southern India -- and in March in northern India. The Kadazans of east Malaysia gave their thanks in May.

Unlike America, most other countries -- and sometimes regions in the same country -- often do not have a fixed day to give thanks. America may be a relative latecomer when it comes to the tradition, but then, none of the other countries can boast all-day televised football.

Vietnam, in fact, claims its Tet Trung Thu is at least 15,000 years old. Ancient Egyptians had thanksgiving festivals, as did the ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Hebrews.

In the Czech Republic, the traditional Dozinky holiday dinner consists of sauerkraut and kolache cake, and the girls in attendance get wreaths of rye or wheat and wild flowers to wear on their heads.

Most thanksgivings, in fact, are tied to harvest season, so the time they are observed depends, in large part, on what is harvested.

In southern India, the big crop is rice, and it is plucked and stacked by mid-January, in time for the three-day Pongal festival, which begins Jan. 14. In east Malaysia, the Kadazan people harvest their rice crop in May, and thanks are then given to the gods.

The harvest festival more commonly observed in some African countries is the annual Yam Festival in early August. That is the time when farmers offer the hardy sweet potato to the gods and to the memory of ancestors.

Koreans also remember ancestors in their annual thanksgiving holiday of Ch'usok, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, in early autumn. The date is linked to the harvest moon and the legend of the birth of the earth god Tiu-ti Kung.

Children often help adults make crescent-shaped "moon cakes" from rice, chestnuts and jujube fruits.

Thailand marks its thanksgiving with a festival of lights called Loy Krathong. At night, celebrants put lotus-shaped bouquets (krathongs), made of banana leaves and decorated with candles, incense and coins, into lakes, ponds and rivers to float (loy).

In India, the spring harvest festival of Holi lasts five days and is a prankish event. In northern India, people throw colored water and powder at one another, dirtying up old clothes in anticipation of getting new ones. In the south, celebrants decorate their cattle with flowers and bells, to honor them for plowing the fields.

Work-obsessed Japanese also take time to be with family to mark thanksgiving, but the Nov. 23 observance, established in 1948 at the height of U.S. occupation and reindustrialization, is called Labor Thanksgiving Day. It was designated as a time to honor workers.

Well, Nathen, I don't know what to say about all that. I feel you should have sided with me, out of undying love if nothing else. We are Americans, and Americans don't really care about India and the Czech Republic or African Yam Festivals and all that. Not, for that matter, that we actually "care" about Canada either, but at least they speak English like people should. But we are not an apathetic nation, we do care about some things, and having foreigners claim our holiday as their own and act like they invented turkey and dressing is the sort of thing we could go to fisticuffs (if not war) over.
So all this information you posted doesn't answer the important question here, which is a simple one; Did Canada swipe our holiday?
I have no doubts myself, having clear memories of "The First Thanksgiving" in my grade school history book, with a picture of smiling Pilgrims and Indians gathering together for a turkey dinner. The Indians brought corn, or "maize" as they called it, not even knowing the correct name, but the Pilgrims smiled kindly and ate it anyway. You can see I remember all this quite well. Sparkydon possibly doesn't remember his own history book picture of laughing Canadians running through the woods with a stolen turkey and Sweet Potato Pie, under the heading "The Second Thanksgiving".

Batty is 100% correct, I too recall events just as she says they occured, it would be impossible for our courty to have lied to us, after all we also invented honesty.

We need to update the holiday anyway. We're not really thankful just to find ourselves not dead at the end of the year, are we? We might try to be, but most of us are a little pissed off, aren't we? And it's all very complicated anyway. A bountiful harvest will drive down farm prices, so unless supports are in place, it sucks for the farmers at least as much as if the crops are good. Maybe we should have a Thanks, but No Thanksgiving. Or something more pointed...

Dear Cheryl...
I was hoping you could help me with a problem...could you explain this time zone thing to me??? I,m really puzzled...I used to think my blunder friends were a hour or two behind the time here,,,
But now i,m really confused about New York state...what time zone are they in?...
I,m asking as i thought the book club was meeting on Monday night as did some others..
I and others were popped by and no RB...

Tuesday night(here that is) I pop in and RB had been in blat...
Does his mean when it is Tues. night here it is only Monday in New York??
What time zone are they in?? Is there really a celery time zone??if so is N.Y. in the Celery time zone?
Thanks.......signed confused canuck <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/confused.gif" width=15 height=22>

Ny is in the Eastern Time zone. It appears the blunderites were all in celery time...

Dear Cheryl,

Oscar Wilde said, "The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future."

If Oscar was right, which are we?

--Confused and Concerned

I'd say we could be both... Ya never know in celery time...

Dear Cheryl:

Why is the Monongahela River not in Monongahela? What exactly is a Monongahela? Are they tasty?
Will Bridget really leave Bernie?

signed:
A weary traveller.

Stay tuned to the Bridget Loves Bernie re-runs. I bet they go on a trip to the Monongahela River... <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>

Dear Cheryl,

I won tickets to go see Lou Reed tonight. Are they good seats? Can I win the lottery tonight?

Yours truly,

Broke and Going to a Concert

Goofus. Give us the goods on Lou! I saw him on that fundraiser on Comedy Central? & he was in perfect form. One of my favorite stars, & songwriter. Forgiving him for that last album of Opera of course>>>>><img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>